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me to him, and not the other way around.
    I bid him farewell with a lump in my throat—how very like his father he appeared now, taller and self-assured—but he avoided my kiss, clearly affected by the rebels’ chiding. I felt an ache in my breast, as if he had walked out through a door in my heart and left it open to the cold winds—but I quickly dismissed it. Louis was as much a part of me as my own soul. He would return soon enough.
    Imagine my distress a few weeks later, then, to hear that he was in danger. Two messengers burst into the great hall with the news: Louis and his knights and servants had fled the previous evening to the castle at Montlhéry, fearing for their lives. Pierre and Hugh, somehow hearing of his tour—had they planted spies in my court as well?—had gathered a large army at Corbeil to entrap him.
    How I refrained from tearing the hair from my head I will never know. “Thanks be to God for protecting the king, and to you for your haste in bringing us this news,” I said in a voice as still as a stopped heart. I ordered baths and a meal for the messengers, then walked to my chambers as if in a dream, suppressing the urge to run to him, go now, hurry before it is too late. My people needed strength from their queen, not womanly weakness. In that moment, I forgave my mother everything.
    Romano . But he was not here. Instead, I walked into my chambers to find Mincia laying out a new gown of gray-blue silk for the fête planned that evening in Louis’s honor. I had ordered the dress a week ago especially for this occasion. I snatched it up, crumpling the delicate fabric, and pressed it to my weeping eyes. The last time I’d planned a surprise welcome for someone, he’d never returned home.
    “My lady!” Mincia, the dear soul, my companion of nearly thirty years, pulled the tunic gently from my hands and handed it to Eudeline, then wrapped her arms around me. Together we sat on the bed’s edge as I told her the news.
    “Thank you, Holy Mother!” she cried. Her eyes shone. “The Virgin has answered my prayers. Since the king departed I have begged her daily to watch over him, and now behold: she has alerted him to this trap. Fear not, my lady. She will keep King Louis safe.”
    “Or, more likely, Montlhéry will do so.” Its five towers made it the most fortified castle in France. Mincia said nothing, but I could discern her thoughts behind her frown. You used to be pious. What has happened?
    “So many trials, and all undeserved,” I said with a sigh.
    “Remember Job, my lady. His trials strengthened his faith, as ours may do for us.”
    “Indeed, Mincia, I now have more faith than ever before—in my own abilities.”
    As much as I longed to do so, I could not cancel the fête. Already guests were arriving from as far away as Flanders and Toulouse. To raise an alarm would only lend credence to the rebels’ claims that I was weak and emotional, being female, and therefore unfit to rule. Maintaining calm in the face of this crisis was my best course of action. I could send no aid to Louis, anyway, until I mustered an army large enough to beat back the stubborn rebels. I hoped some of our guests—the provost of Paris, for instance, and Robert Gâteblé—might provide ideas and intelligence for doing so.
    Romano, too, would be here tonight, returned from his meeting with Pope Gregory in Rome. I was eager to learn what, if anything, had transpired. Had the pope granted his request? Please, God, give me Romano, at least. I’d come to depend on my cardinal. Without him now, I felt as if my every decision were a guess, and every happy result mere good fortune.
    That night, the musicians played cheerful tunes, as I had requested. News of Louis’s endangerment would have spread by now, and I wanted to convey confidence that we would prevail. Banners and ribbons trailed gold and blue, the colors of France, from the rafters. Irises gathered wild from the banks of the Seine filled the hall